A Robot Named Fight Review

Plenty of indie games try to recapture the magic of Nintendo's Metroid franchise. However, very few of them succeed in living up to the phenomenal 30 year old series so let's see if A Robot Named Fight does.

I'll just shoot these worms from the safety of this ledge

A Robot Named Fight has you control a robot presumably named... Fight. It's your job to rid your mechanical planet from invading organic life forms. That's the story in a nutshell so how does it play? When you first take control of Fight, it's obvious that the developer borrowed heavily from Super Metroid. A few years back, I played through the fantastic Axiom Verge and thought that it borrowed a bit too much from the Metroid series. However, A Robot Named Fight shamelessly copies even more from the classic franchise. I must say, when developers merely try to emulate the classics instead of having the creativity to craft a wholly unique experience, it really chaps my hide. On top of that, A Robot Named Fight isn't even half as enjoyable as Super Metroid due to its goofy world and controls that feel a bit off complete with floaty jumps. It's like a bargain bin Super Metroid but ironically, it's more expensive, too.

Thankfully, A Robot Named Fight has a roguelike structure that is admittedly unique for a Metroidvania-style game. The only game that comes to mind with a similar structure is Rogue Legacy and that game's incredible. Anyway, the roguelike structure definitely adds a great deal of challenge to the surprisingly short campaign. However, it's not very well implemented. For starters, you're always pushed along your way in a linear manner no matter how that iteration of the randomly generated world is laid out. You'll find yourself traversing the same handful of areas in the exact same order and start to recognize repeated room layouts almost immediately. Not only that, the randomness of it all makes some runs super-frustrating while other runs are a breeze. Sometimes, you'll have to head straight to a tough boss with minimal power-ups while other times, you end up being far too powerful early on. Also, whenever you perish (which can frankly feel very unfair in certain situations), you have to start the whole campaign over again. Luckily, it's only just over an hour long.

These butterflies sure aren't as peaceful as the ones on Earth

Roguelikes are most enjoyable when you unlock permanent upgrades between runs so it pleases me to say that A Robot Named Fight has a large array of unlockable power-ups. Upon unlocking one, you don't receive its effects permanently but it has the potential to appear in further playthroughs. You unlock these by completing tasks such as defeating certain bosses and exploring new areas which I found to be very rewarding. After all, the gameplay is simple and easy to learn so unlocking additional aspects makes it feel much more varied and fulfilling. This is especially true when you gather certain key items that act as currency which you can redeem at the odd store or offer to the gods at designated temples. To be honest, I never figured out how to appease the gods because my offering was never good enough. I'm thinking Mr. Fight should become an atheist after dealing with all that nonsense.

A Robot Named Fight has pretty solid visuals with detailed environments, bizarre creatures, and decent animation. One of the coolest aspects of its graphics is when you kill an enemy as it usually results in a bloody brutal mess with chunks of meat flying everywhere which makes killing things so much more gratifying. On the other end of the spectrum, the music is quite embarrassing. Just like with the gameplay, it tries too hard to sound like Super Metroid's soundtrack but it fails. It's as if an amateur musician heard Super Metroid's music then banged out the entire soundtrack in an afternoon. It's repetitive, annoying, and an insult to the game that it's inspired by.

Is this a boss or a regular enemy?

A Robot Named Fight is clearly a modern interpretation of Super Metroid but with a roguelike structure. Considering Super Metroid is a far better experience in every way and is readily available at a much better price, playing this instead would be a silly mistake.

+ Provides simple 2D action gameplay that's easy to learn and can be fun in short bursts

A.J. Maciejewski (crazyaejay): Thanks for reading my review of A Robot Named Fight. Feel free to ask any questions about the game or provide feedback and I'll gladly reply.

Nuruddin Peters (Dumaraz): The music at first felt off, but it slowly grows on you. Every song, from the intro, to each of the unique areas, plus the final boss sounds absolutely amazing. I think your review, IMO is a bit heavy-handed. While this game clearly borrows major concepts, and various mainstay mechanics from Super Metroid (SM), SM is not superior in every way. In fact, after my 3rd successful run, I'm learning how this game actually borrowed the many exciting aspects of SM it emulates, and made it *better* in various ways. While this game isnt perfect, the 12.99 is exceptional, especially on the Nin Switch (which i bought this game on) their really isnt any other game like this on the Switch. It completely scratches the itch for a 2d metroid, to boot, the procedurally generated environments keep the replay fresh to an extent. This game is a goddamn sleeper hit, at least a 8 out of 10. It truly deserves more praise. Edit: i literally just beat the game a 3rd time, and to my surprise, the game just gave me quite a surprise. I wont spoil it, but wholly ****... the replay value actually matters, there IS a point to replaying, even if the story is chessy, there is a continuity to it. Again, sleeper hit.

A.J. Maciejewski (crazyaejay): Hi, Nuruddin. I understand if you think my review is a bit harsh but when it comes to indie titles that lift heavily from retro games, I'm usually highly critical of them. I expect indie developers to do more with these established formulas and although A Robot Named Fight has the roguelike thing going for it, it's clearly a lower quality Super Metroid clone. Can I ask: when was the last time you played Super Metroid? I played it while reviewing this game and the difference is astounding. Super Metroid is a near-perfect experience and overshadows this in every way that I can think of which is surprising considering it came out almost 25 years ago. I got to that point, too, and I was impressed that the game opened up more (I hope that doesn't spoil anything) but it still didn't blow me away. Anyway, to each their own. I've loved games that get a 4 average on review aggregators and I've hated games that get a 9.

Will Cooper: I also felt this review was too negative. The shrines are a huge part of the game which confused me at first, but change the gameplay a ton once you figure that out. Each God has a "holy number" which is the number of sides to its shape. As long as you give gray scrap in multiples of that number (along with other special scrap) you will always get a good result. If you don't know this, then yes shrines are quite frustrating. The price is perfectly reasonable, I thought it was silly to bring that up in the review. There are a lot of unlockables which really does help the replay value. (I would stop playing sooner otherwise.) This was a tough concepts to implement (rogue like x metroidvania) but I feel it is pulled off well and keeps the game from getting stale. There is a steep difficulty curve and I think the "perma-death" turns people off, but TBH that just comes with the territory when playing a rogue like. The music is good to me. And obviously Super Metroid is better - many regard that as the best video game of all time for 2D side scrolling. I wasn't put off by any of the things that this game brought over. It's not like the dev was trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. It's assumed we've all played Super Metroid before. The target audience for this game are people who would have already played Super Metroid a million times over. In my opinion this game is quite impressive for the work of one developer. It has some flaws, but they don't weigh down the overall experience.

A.J. Maciejewski (crazyaejay): Hi, Will. I had no idea about that shrine thing. Thanks for the tip! I'll be sure to use it in future playthroughs. As for awesome Metroidvania roguelikes, we highly recommend Sundered . It takes a while to grow on you but once it does: oh man, is it incredible!

Gremm Paltakin (gremm_paltakin): At least two places in your review you claimed that A Robot Named Fight is "more expensive" than Super Metroid. Please explain what you mean by this? It is not available on the Nintendo Switch eShop currently, the SNES cartridge is around $40 loose, and finally, the SNES Classic is $80. Are you saying this game is more expensive than pirating a Super Metroid rom?